Ḥamāsacronym of Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, English Islamic Resistance Movementmilitant Palestinian Islamic movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in Palestine. Founded in 1987, Ḥamās opposed the 1993 peace accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

From the late 1970s, Islamic activists connected with the pan-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood established a network of charities, clinics, and schools and became active in the territories (the Gaza Strip and West Bank) occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War. In Gaza they were active in many mosques, while their activities in the West Bank generally were limited to the universities. The Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in these areas were generally nonviolent, but a number of small groups in the occupied territories began to call for jihad, or holy war, against Israel. In December 1987, at the beginning of the Palestinian intifada (from Arabic intifāḍah, “shaking off”) movement against Israeli occupation, Ḥamās (which also is an Arabic word meaning “zeal”) was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood and religious factions of the PLO, and the new organization quickly acquired a broad following. In its 1988 charter, Ḥamās maintained that Palestine is an Islamic homeland that can never be surrendered to non-Muslims and that waging holy war to wrest control of Palestine from Israel is a religious duty for Palestinian Muslims. This position brought it into conflict with the PLO, which in 1988 recognized Israel’s right to exist.

Ḥamās soon began to act independently of other Palestinian organizations, generating animosity between the group and its secular nationalist counterparts. Increasingly violent Ḥamās attacks on civilian and military targets impelled Israel to arrest a number of Ḥamās leaders in 1989, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement’s founder. In the years that followed, Ḥamās underwent reorganization to reinforce its command structure and locate key leaders out of Israel’s reach. A political bureau responsible for the organization’s international relations and fund-raising was formed in Amman, Jordan, and the group’s armed wing was reconstituted as the ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Qassām Forces.

Ḥamās denounced the 1993 peace agreement between Israel and the PLO and, along with the Islamic Jihad group, subsequently intensified its terror campaign using suicide bombers. The PLO and Israel responded with harsh security and punitive measures, although PLO chairman Yāsir ʿArafāt, seeking to include Ḥamās in the political process, appointed Ḥamās members to leadership positions in the Palestinian Authority (PA). The collapse of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in September 2000 led to an increase in violence that came to be known as the Aqṣā intifada. That conflict was marked by a degree of violence unseen in the first intifada, and Ḥamās activists further escalated their attacks on Israelis and engaged in a number of suicide bombings in Israel itself. Jordan expelled Ḥamās leaders from Amman in 1999, accusing them of having used their Jordanian offices as a command post for military activities in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2001 the political bureau established new headquarters in Damascus, Syria.

In early 2005 Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced a suspension of hostilities as Israel prepared to withdraw troops from some Palestinian territories. After much negotiation, Ḥamās agreed to the cease-fire, although sporadic violence continued. In the 2006 elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ḥamās won a surprise victory over Fatah, capturing the majority of seats. The two groups eventually formed a coalition government, though clashes between Ḥamās and Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip intensified, prompting Abbas to dissolve the Ḥamās-led government and declare a state of emergency in June 2007. Ḥamās was left in control of the Gaza Strip, while a Fatah-led emergency cabinet had control of the West Bank.

Later that year Israel declared the Gaza Strip under Ḥamās a hostile entity and approved a series of sanctions that included power cuts, heavily restricted imports, and border closures. Ḥamās attacks on Israel continued, as did Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. After months of negotiations, in June 2008 Israel and Ḥamās agreed to implement a truce scheduled to last six months; however, this was threatened shortly thereafter as each accused the other of violations, which escalated in the last months of the agreement. On December 19 the truce officially expired amid accusations of violations on both sides. Broader hostilities erupted shortly thereafter as Israel, responding to sustained rocket fire, mounted a series of air strikes across the region—among the strongest in years—meant to target Ḥamās. After a week of air strikes, Israeli forces initiated a ground campaign into the Gaza Strip amid calls from the international community for a cease-fire. Following more than three weeks of hostilities—in which perhaps more than 1,000 were killed and tens of thousands left homeless—Israel and Ḥamās each declared a unilateral cease-fire.

In April 2011 Ḥamās and Fatah officials announced that the two sides had reached a reconciliation agreement in negotiations mediated by Egypt. The agreement, signed in Cairo on May 4, called for the formation of an interim government to organize legislative and presidential elections in 2012. After months of negotiations over the leadership of the interim government, the two parties announced in February 2012 that they had selected Abbas for the post of interim prime minister.

Ḥamās’s relations with the governments of Syria and Iran, two of its primary sources of support, were strained in 2011 when Ḥamās leaders in Damascus conspicuously avoided expressing support for a crackdown by Syrian armed forces against antigovernment protesters inside the country. In early 2012 Ḥamās leaders left Syria for Egypt and Qatar and then publicly declared their support for the Syrian opposition.

In Beginning on November 14, 2012, Israel launched a series of air strikes in Gaza, in response to an increase in the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory over the previous nine months. The head of the ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Qassām Forces, Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari, was killed in the initial strike. Ḥamās retaliated with increasing rocket attacks on Israel, and hostilities threatened to escalate into a new ground battle similar to the one in 2008–09continued until Israel and Ḥamās reached a cease-fire agreement on November 21.